Max Kade German Writer in Residence Program

We welcome Barbara Köhler as our 41st Max Kade German Writer-in-Residence at Oberlin College.

Barbara Köhler is a major poet, translator, essayist, and mixed media artist who is highly regarded in Germany today. Köhler grew up and was educated in the former East Germany. Born in the state of Saxony in 1959, she held various positions in theater in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz) and studied at the Institut für Literatur in Leipzig. Köhler currently lives in Duisburg. Köhler’s published works include many volumes of poetry and mixed media. These include Blue Box (1995); Deutsches Roulette. Gedichte. 1984–1989 (1991);  Niemands Frau (2007); and Wittgensteins Nichte. Vermischte Schriften (1999).

An accomplished literary translator, Köhler has published three volumes of translation from English and French: Gertrude Stein’s zeit zum essen. eine tischgesellschaft (Audio-CD, ed. Urs Engeler, 2001); Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons / Zarte knöpft (Suhrkamp, 2004); and Samuel Beckett’s Mirlitonnades / Trötentöne (Bibliothek Suhrkamp, 2005).

Köhler is noted as well for her collaboration with poets and artists from diverse fields, an attribute of her work that we especially hope to support here in Oberlin. Her audio, visual, and spatial installations offer an intensive examination of language and art. Köhler’s overarching goal is to explore the many dimensions of texts and the relationship among media. She pays special attention to tone and rhythm, and is known as well for her wonderful sense of humor.

Barbara Köhler was Writer-in-Residence in the city of Rheinsberg in 1995 and at the University of Warwick in 1997. For her poetry and collaborative work, Köhler has received a number of significant prizes. These include the Joachim-Ringelnatz-Preis (2008); Samuel-Bogumil-Linde-Literaturpreis (2003); Förderpreis zum Lessing-Preis des Freistaates Sachsen (2001); Literaturpreis des Ruhrgebietes (1999); Förderpreis Literatur des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (1997); Clemens-Brentano-Preis der Stadt Heidelberg (1996); Förderpreis zum Else-Lasker-Schüler-Preis (1994); Förderpreis zum Hölderlin-Preis der Stadt Bad Homburg (1992); Förderpreis zum Leonce-und-Lena-Preis (1991); and the Preis der Jürgen Ponto-Stiftung (1990).

Barbara Köhler’s work has moreover garnered notable attention from scholars in the United States and in Europe. Since the appearance of the book Entgegenkommen: Dialogues with Barbara Köhler (Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi; 2000), several important critical studies of Köhler’s work have appeared in major journals. These include German Life and Letters; Colloquia Germanica: Internationale Zeitschrift für Germanistik; and Gegenwartsliteratur: A German Studies Yearbook.

Past Writers-In-Residence

2008
40th Max Kade German Writer-in-Residence

Jan Wagner as the 40th Max Kade German Writer-in-Residence for the fall semester 2008. Mr. Wagner is a poet and translator of literary works from English into German. Born in 1971 in Hamburg, he studied English and American studies in Hamburg, Dublin, and Berlin. He has worked as a freelance reviewer for the major German newspapers Frankfurter Rundschau and Tagesspiegeland co-published the international literature box  Die Aussenseite des Elements until 2003. He has lived in Berlin since 1995.
 
Jan Wagner is the author of several collections of poetry, including Guerickes Sperling (2004) and Probebohrungim Himmel (2001). As co-editor with Björn Kuhligk, he published Lyrik von Jetzt. 74 Stimmen (2003). He translated and edited JamesTate, Der falsche Weg nach Hause(2004) and Charles Simic, Grübelei im Rinnstein (2000), with Hans Magnus Enzensberger, MichaelKrüger, and Rainer G. Schmidt. His poems appear in numerous anthologies, newspapers, and literary magazines, including Jahrbuch der Lyrik, neue deutsche literatur, Akzente, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ,Das Gedicht, Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, Edit and Konzepte.

2007
39th Max Kade German Writer-in-Residence

Uwe Kolbe
Poet, Essayist, Writer of Prose, and Translator

Uwe Kolbe was born in 1957 in East Berlin. His father was a sailor on the inland waterways. After graduating from high school and completing military service, he studied at the Literatur-Institut Johannes R. Becher in Leipzig from 1980 to 1981. His first volume of poetry, Hineingeboren, appeared in East Berlin in 1980, but the increasingly critical nature of his writing led to a ban on publication in the GDR in the early 1980s. During these years, he edited the illegal journal Mikado together with Lothar Trolle and Bernd Wagner. In 1985, he was permitted to travel abroad and lived in Hamburg from 1987 until he could return to Berlin after the fall of the wall. Today, he divides his time between Berlin and Tübingen, where he is Director of the "Studio Literatur und Theater" at the University of Tübingen.

Recent publications include the essay collection Renegatentermine (1998), the poetry collections Vineta (1998) and Die Farben des Wassers (2001), Der Tote von Belintasch, Kriminalgeschichte (2002). Thrakische Spiele, Roman (2005), and another volume of poetry ortvoll. Gedichte (2005).

Uwe Kolbe has received numerous prizes, including the Nicolas Born Prize (1988) the Tübingen Friedrich Hölderlin Prize (1993), and the Preis der Literaturhäuser (2006). He was also writer-in-residence in Austin, Texas in 1989, from where he observed the fall of the wall.

2006
38th Max Kade Writer-in-Residence

Gila Lustiger

2005
37th Max Kade Writer-in-Residence

Mariella Mehr

2005
36th Max Kade Writer-in-Residence

Katja Lange-Müller

2003
35th Max Kade Writer-in-Residence

Peter Stefan Jungk

2002
34th Max Kade Writer-in-Residence

Doron Rabinovici

2001
33rd Max Kade Writer-in-Residence

Irina Liebmann

2000
32nd Max Kade Writer-in-Residence

Zafer Senocak

*****

1999 Gert Loschütz
1998 Werner Söllner
1997 Anna Mitgutsch
1996 Barbara Neuwirth
1995 Thomas Rosenlöcher
1994 Ralf Rothmann
1992 Richard Wagner
1991 Jürg Amann
1990 Hanna Johansen
1989 Josef Haslinger
1988 Helga Schütz
1987 Gernot Wolfgruber
1986 Karl-Heinz Jakobs
1985 Rainer Malkowski
1984 Gert Hofmann
1983 Peter Rosei
1982 Bernd Jentzsch
1981 Walter Helmut Fritz
1980 Christoph Geiser
1979 Johannes Schenk
1978 Jurek Becker
1977 Max von der Grün
1976 Barbara Frischmuth
1975 Ulrich Plenzdorf
1974 Christa Wolf
1973 Helga Novak
1972 Peter Bichsel
1971 Christoph Meckel
1970 Tankred Dorst
1969 Fritz Hochwälder
1968 Kuno Raeber

The Max Kade Writer-in-Residence Program now entering its 40th year, is a unique opportunity for Oberlin College students and faculty to spend a semester with a prominent and exciting contemporary author by reading and discussing his/her work. Over the years, these writers have contributed significantly to postwar German literature. Among them are poets and novelists from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Perhaps the most famous is Christa Wolf, followed by others with international reputations, such as Jurek Becker, Helga Novak, Ulrich Plenzdorf, Barbara Frischmuth, Tankred Dorst, among others. The short stories by Peter Bichsel are a staple in modern German literature as well as in our German language classes. More recent texts by Richard Wagner (who migrated to Germany from Rumania in 1988), Zafer Senocak, the German-Turkish author, Irina Liebmann, who left East Germany shortly before the opening of the wall, or Doron Rabinovici, one of the young Austrian-Jewish writers, are featured in and enrich our advanced literature courses. They also illustrate the shifting literary landscape and concerns in German-speaking countries.